[k_woods]

I ran quick 2.5 hour tourney, T10,000.
I fixed up my original to this:

Most thought that this was ok. One player thought it went up too quickly.
The worst thing was in the first 3 rounds we averaged 3 min/hand so runds were 1/2 of an orbit. I don't really want to make the times longer because I want a 2.5 hour tourney.
Any thoughts??

15 minute rounds

SB BB Ante
100 200 0
150 300 0
250 500 0
500 1000 0
BREAK color up 25's (race off)
800 1600 0
1000 2000 0
1000 2000 200
2000 4000 200
BREAK Reduce 100's by 50%
3000 6000 500
4000 8000 500
6000 12000 800
10000 20000 1000
BREAK Race off 100's
15000 30000 1500
20000 40000 2000
30000 60000 3000
40000 80000 4000

[ky70]

At 2.5 hours I'm guessing this is probably a single table or at the most 2 tables. If that's the case why not just drop the antes and tweak your blinds to still get the same result without having to race off the 100s at two different breaks and worry about antes.

FWIW, I don't think that the 100s "have to" be raced off, but if you're going to colorup I say remove all of a denom during the same break.

[MTUCache]

These are the types of tournaments that I'll play at once, and then never go to again.

2.5 hours? Why? Why even bother calling it "poker"?

Why not just put all the money in the middle and ro-sham-bo for it?
Or just draw high cards? That way you could be done in like 10 minutes.
You're practically just flipping coins for it anyway.

There's going to be next to zero skill required to win the tournament, all you have to do is spike a couple of decent hands.

If you're going to run a tournament, and you're going to put forth the effort to come up with blind levels and chip breakdowns and such, why rush it so much?

If you don't have time for a tournament, then don't have one... just play a cash game.

[PhilTheThrill14]

Some people like quick tournies. Go check out the turbos on PP and P* - they get plenty of action.

To say there is no skill is not correct. It actually takes quite a bit of skill and certainly some adjustments to your normal game to be successful at quick tournies. Sure, someone can get lucky, get a few good hands, and there is nothing you can do. But if you play these quick tournies every week with the same crew, you can certainly out-skill your opponents.

[MTUCache]

Originally Posted by PhilTheThrill14

Some people like quick tournies. Go check out the turbos on PP and P* - they get plenty of action.

To say there is no skill is not correct. It actually takes quite a bit of skill and certainly some adjustments to your normal game to be successful at quick tournies. Sure, someone can get lucky, get a few good hands, and there is nothing you can do. But if you play these quick tournies every week with the same crew, you can certainly out-skill your opponents.

Alright... true enough. I'll admit that it's a lot better than just drawing high cards.

But, I can't tell you how frustrating it is to get to a tournament where the setup severly limits the skill that could be involved. Tournaments with very aggressive blind schedules (or un-evenly distrubuted blind schedules), or small starting stacks almost aren't worth playing in if you are in the upper end of the players there.

So, I'll admit, if you're just there to have a good time, all your friends are about equal skill, and the buy-ins are cheap, then a quick tourney can be a fun way to spend an evening with your buddies. Just be aware that the luck-factor involved is significantly increased.

Sorry for sounding so crabby earlier.

[hachkc]

Personally, I don't like turbo tournies like this as it places too much emphasis on the cards and not the player. As long as everyone knows its a turbo tourney, what too complain about. That being said, 3mins/hand is too slow.

1. Have multiple decks running if you don't.

2. Have the rounds 1-3 go for 20-25mins and rounds 4+ go for only 10mins. Generally longer to shorter rounds works better because you always have less people in the later rounds so they can see the same number of hands in shorter rounds.

3. Do ante's slow down the game? If so, drop them. If your players never need to be reminded to post blinds and ante's, don't worry about it.

4. Put a boot to the a$$es of those slowplayers.

At one game I play in, we have dedicated dealer players that rotate every couple of rounds. They sit across from each other at the middle of the holdem table and alternate deals. This is much easier and faster than even running 2 decks.

[tastic]

I used to run a T10000 that lasted between 2.5 and 3 hrs...my group didn't feel it was too aggressive a schedule...and it was definitely evident that the better players did better overall...generally 8-10 people, over the course of about a dozen games, the same 2 people who had arguably the more skilled players had 9 wins between them, and I think there was only 2 tourneys where one of them weren't in the top 2...

I ran

15 min blinds, no antes, T10000, no need for $25s, starting at 100XBB

100/100
100/200
200/400
300/600
500/1000
700/1500
1000/2000
1500/3000
2000/4000
2500/5000
3000/6000
4000/8000

We'd do 2 tourneys a night or follow this up with a ring game

[k_woods]

I'll add, that we also play longer tourneys, but most of my friends don't like ring limit holdem. They like what they see on TV. So I'll say that turbo HoldEm is better than no HoldEm at all. I didn't think that 50XBB was a bad start, and T10K is a lot of chips (and I have a lot of chips).

The purpose of this game is so 8-10 people can sit down at a table and play some HE and not take all night to do it. Not high stakes, and this way if we get two games in, the people that who were sent packing early can get another game in.

I thought 3 min a hand was excesive, we do have 2 decks going. It was the play, I try to have it be a some what friendly game, start with a timer and that puts an edge on the game. What made it go slow was that there were many players to the river. I was folding most of the time in early rounds so I got to watch. The antes were not slowing dow play either.
What did slow down play was "all in" chip counting. That is why I was thinking of getting at least half of the 100's off the table at the second break (this to speed up counting of the chips)


I guess I could get rid of the $25 chips, but then I would not get to play with my green chips!! I did not think the green chips got in the way until the 6th round. My new schedule removes the green chips after round four.

What did bother me was the people in position 5 -10 were having the higher blinds fall on them.

Ken